Work Text:
Chapter 1
Saul woke up with a smile on his face for the first time in a very long time. Things were finally starting to feel normal again. Rosalind was gone thanks to his Farah, who had miraculously risen from the dead at full strength and promptly blasted the frigid old hag into a million pieces, quite literally. Along with Ben, the trio had quickly re-secured Alfea despite Andreas launching a futile and frankly pitiful effort to retain power by holding Sky hostage. Of all the missteps in Andreas’ life, Saul thought this had to be the biggest and most idiotic yet. One look at Andreas holding a knife to their son’s throat and Farah had thrown all thoughts of reconciliation or mercy out the window, promptly vaporizing Andreas where he stood with almost no effort. While things were initially awkward with Sky given the circumstances and whirlwind of events that had occurred, the joy of seeing his mother alive with his father safely at her side had been more than enough for Sky, and the family had quickly settled back into their usual dynamic.
Saul rolled to his side and was disappointed to find that the other side of the bed was cold, long abandoned. Honing in on their inner bond, he sensed Farah in her office and internally rolled his eyes. Where does she find all this paperwork to do? Saul swears that wherever Farah looks, paperwork magically appears. Disappointed but still invigorated by the quiet calm that was gradually reclaiming Alfea, Saul got out of bed with a bounce in his step, headed off to the kitchen to make one of Farah’s favourite meals for breakfast: chocolate chip pancakes layered with syrup. She was usually the better and admittedly safer cook, but really, what could go wrong?
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
On the other side of the castle in her office, Farah was leaning heavily on one of her many bookshelves, clutching her chest. The shawl she had wrapped around herself had long fallen to the floor as she was nearly doubled over on herself, knuckles turning white as she tried to keep herself from falling. She had been woken up by a sharp pain in her chest in the middle of the night and despite the analgesics she had ingested, she was still in pain. Sweated beaded her hairline and strands of her hair were plastered to her face. Her breathing was becoming more laborious, as each breath intensified the pain ten-fold. Internal panic was rising by the second, but as another pain rippled through her chest and toppled her to her knees, she knew what she had to do again. Gathering herself, she focused her energy inwards and imagined herself re-building the walls around the pain, containing it once again. While this strategy had been sufficient to hide her condition for the past few weeks, she could still feel the pain clawing at her mental walls, like a rotted corpse trying to escape its coffin and drag Farah back with it. As she closed the final wall, Farah could feel her energy draining quickly, in fact, quicker than ever before. At that moment, Farah knew that very soon, these temporizing strategies would fail her.
With that sobering realization, Farah closed her eyes, and drawing in a slightly painful breath, rose and retrieved the text she had been consulting. Walking over to her desk where a pile of medical texts had gathered, she continued to read about various magical maladies and their remedies. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for but then again, she was almost certain that there were no texts describing her condition within the confines of her office. After all, Farah was not a regular practitioner of the dark arts.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Dad, don’t you think you may have gone a little… overboard?” questioned Sky, as he stared down at their breakfast table, every inch of which was covered in misshapen chocolate chip pancakes, half-burnt but somehow half raw bacon, eggs that were either just white or just yolks, home fries, and charred toast. Sky looked past Saul at the counter and internally groaned – Mom is for sure going to kill him now. Somehow, pancake batter was on seemingly every surface of the kitchen – it somehow entirely covered the surface of the stove and batter was dripping off of every knob of every cabinet. A bag of chocolate chips had been viciously cremated on one burner, and a stack of what must have once been bacon was stuffed behind the toaster, which itself looked as if it has been on fire recently.
Following Sky’s gaze, Saul looked back at his own mess and bit his lip nervously. It was worse than what he had thought.
“We got this, right? Two specialists, we can have this back in tip-top shape before Mom gets back… right?”
“I don’t know about that Dad, I mean – have you looked at the stove?...Is there a dumpster nearby??”
“She just deep cleaned it yesterday Sky, I don’t know what’s gotten into her but she’s been cleaning everything and anything recently. I.. just wanted to do something nice for her, you know?” said Saul, nervously glancing at the ceiling, where pancake batter was dripping from.
Sky softened – his Mom has been surprisingly absent as of late, either buried under paperwork in her office, running after students, or cleaning the apartment into late hours, long after he or Saul had gone to bed. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought that she was avoiding them.
Sighing in resignation, Sky asked, “Can you sense where she is now?”
Reaching into their bond, Saul was for once grateful that Farah was still seemingly lost in paperwork in her office.
“She hasn’t moved yet – let’s get this show on the road before she gets back.”
With that, Sky grabbed a large garbage bag and with his hand, started scooping batter off the stove aggressively with a well-practiced double hand technique. Saul started tossing his failed first attempts at bacon, pancakes, and eggs into the bag. For good measure, he tossed the toaster into the bag, which earned a disapproving stare from Sky who had moved on from the stove and was now on a chair, scraping pancake off the ceiling.
“Next time Dad, please wake me up if you want to cook. That way, at least I know to start running!”
_____________________________________________________________________________________
As Farah rounded the corner on her way back to the apartment, her pain and fatigue forced her to lean on the wall for support. As an accomplished athlete her entire life, Farah was not used to sensation of feeling out of breath or like her legs were made of lead from a simple walk around the school. Knowing that the closer she physically got to Saul, the more in tune he would be with her emotions, she quickly slipped one of the many vials from her bag and downed it in one go, praying that the analgesic potion would keep her pain at bay temporarily. As she rifled through her bag for other solutions to her predicament, her eyes were unwillingly drawn to the newest addition to her impromptu medical kit, a small bottle filled with shimmering black and yellow liquid that she had made this morning. Despite her difficulty breathing, Farah knew that the small shimmering bottle could only be used once, and while breakfast was important, it was certainly not an emergency. Gathering her energy once again, she took another swig of another analgesic and continued the trek to her family’s apartments.
Opening the heavy oak door, Farah was struck first by a barrage of scents, many of which were alarming. Is the house on fire, she thought to herself. Just as she was about to investigate, Sky popped his head out from the kitchen.
“Hold on mom, we are almost ready! Give us a minute!”
In the background, Farah could hear the telltale sounds of Saul scrambling around the kitchen. Farah smiled warmly – Saul only cooks when he is relaxed and it had been too long since either of them could let loose. Just as Farah had settled on the couch, Saul barrelled into the room.
“Ready for you majesty, “ announced Saul in a dramatic voice, “please, come join us for breakfast!”
Pushing herself delicately off the sofa, Farah extended her arm to Saul, who was waiting by the archway to the kitchen to escort her to her seat.
Upon entering the room, Farah’s eyebrows shot up, but otherwise, there was nothing in her expression that betrayed the truly shocking but heartwarming breakfast spread presented before her.
“There’s pancakes, bacon, eggs, fries, and some lovely toast. What would you like first?”
“One of everything love, this looks amazing,” feigned Farah. “Actually, could you grab the silver from the front closet please? A spread like this needs to be carefully enjoyed.”
Saul’s face lit up and he practically skipped to grab the silver. Once out of sight, Farah dove into her bag and grabbed one of Ben’s famous fortifying potions that had the useful side effect of being an anti-diarrheal. As Sky looked on, Farah poured a copious amount into her tea, Saul’s coffee, and Sky’s orange juice and hid the bottle in her pocket just as Saul re-entered.
“I knew you would be prepared, thank the gods,” whispered Sky, “I have training today and pooping my pants was not on my to-do list for the day.”
With a small smile, Farah whispered back, “Always - just help me get my toaster back. It’s the fifth one this year!”